About the Hernandez Brothers Collection of Hispanic Comics and Cartoon Art

On February 23, 2010, James Bucky Carter, an Assistant Professor of English Education  in the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) English Department, organized the second installment of an event series entitled "El Paso in the Comics" (EPIC).

With generous donations from the English Department, the Dean's Office in the College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Inter-American Border Studies, the Art Department, and the Sam Donaldson Center in the Department of Communication, Carter was able to bring together local comics creators and publishers from El Paso and Juarez to discuss and share their work with the Border community.

The keynote speaker for the second EPIC was Jaime Hernandez, a modern American master of the comics form. Hernandez crafts stories featuring Hispanic and Chicano/Chicana characters trying to find meaning in their lives and cultures. His  work and the work of his brother Gilbert and Mario on Love and Rockets and its connected series of books is considered some of the finest comics storytelling of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Gilbert (Beto), Jaime, and Mario Hernandez at Comic Con International, 2012

In talking with Jaime, Carter learned that his mother and grandmother had ties to the Borderland and discussed the idea of creating a space that would honor the Hernandez Brothers' connection to this region.

A little while later, with help from UTEP librarians Claudia Rivers, Nancy Hill,  and Luke Jastrzebski, English Department Chair David Ruiter and English Department Library Liaison Kate Mangelsdorf, the brothers' blessing, and a generous donation from their publisher, Fantagraphics, the Hernandez Brothers Collection of Hispanic Comics and Cartoon Art was founded.

The collection, comprised mostly of pamphlet-style comics and graphic novels, is housed primarily  with the UTEP library's Chicano Collection, though various other artifacts are housed where they are best preserved.

Some of the founding donation from Fantagraphics

Goals:
The Hernandez Brothers Collection of Hispanic Comics and Cartoon Art has three goals:

PRIMARY GOAL: To collect, spotlight, preserve, and make available to the UTEP community and other scholars resources from Hispanic/Latino/a/Chicano/a comics artists and writers, with “resources” defined as comics, graphic novels, and related artifacts (original art, scripts, associated publications and scholarship), and to collect, spotlight and make available to the UTEP community comics and graphic novels that explore issues related to the Hispanic/Latino/a/Chicano/a experience. An emphasis is placed on comics and associated materials emanating from the Borderland.

SECONDARY GOAL: To collect, spotlight, preserve, and make available to the UTEP community and other scholars resources from comics artists and writers of other Spanish traditions, with “resources” defined as comics, graphic novels, and related artifacts (original art, scripts, associated publications and scholarship).

TERTIARY GOAL: To collect, spotlight, preserve, and make available to the UTEP community and other scholars Spanish-language comics and comics-related resources.

Mission:

The mission of the Hernandez Brother Collection is to meet the goals set forth above in the long term, and in the short term the mission is to work with companies, corporations, granting entities, artists, and the personnel at other libraries to procure items for the collection, make space for them in the UTEP library, preserve and protect items as necessary, and to display them in the proper manner.